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making Cider...procedural questions
folks-
i am going to make my cider today. i am using 5-gallons of Knudsen's Organic Apple Cider as the base for the must. i am going to add one pound of dark brown sugar, 2 1/2 tsp of pectic enzyme, and 2 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient to the must.
what i am unsure of is:
1) how much of the cider should i warm up to dissolve the sugar in? 2 gallons?
2) do i dissolve the pectic enzyme and the yeast nutrient in the must i am warming up? or do i just stir it into the fermentor once i am mixing it all together?
3) with this organic apple cider, there is a bit of "apple sediment" already settled out to the bottom of the gallon jugs i bought it in. as this is eventually going to have to settle out to clear the cider anyways, should i just leave it settled out when i pour the apple cider into the fermentor? or do i want this sediment in the must for the sugars in it and the flavors it will impart to the end product?
4) i would like to add some cinammon in whole bark form; do i do this in the must i am warming to dissolve the sugar? or do i throw the bark in the fermentor? i want a cinammon flavor, not an overwhelming cinammon drink with a top note of apple (which i fear may happen if i leave the bark in the fermentor for the entire fermentation period).
please to respond, i would like to brew this today! any input whatsoever is appreciated.
i have not decided if i am going to use the WYeast Cider smack pack or a champagne-style yeast (possibly Pris-de-mousse or cote de blanc?). guidance here is appreciated as well; i would like a dry cider but not one that is too dry and apple-flavorless.
I can only help you with a couple of these questions as I've only brewed cider once. I used 2 gallons of cider to dissolve the sugar in. Add the nutrient and pectic ensyme to the fermenter. As for the sediment in the cider, all I can tell you is that I just went ahead and poured it all in the fermeter. It settles out anyway. Using an ale yeast will give you more of a commerical style cider with a lot of apple flavor.
good enough! thanks for the input, brownbomber. i had been thinking about it and had come to the conclusion that it can't hurt to shake up the cider and pour everything in. it will settle out in the end anyways, so might as well have it in there for any potential beneficial properties it might imbue.
i am going to start brewing, so i guess i will play the cinammon by ear.
i brewed the cider sunday last and it is chugging along like a freight train.
i ended up putting in two 3-inch pieces of whole cinammon bark and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg in 2 gallons of cider and steeping it for an hour, to give it a good mulling. dissolved 1.5 lbs of dark brown sugar and pitched two packets of premiere cuvee yeast. i followed your advice, brownbomber, and added the pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient to the fermentor before transferring the must in. then proceded to aerate the ever living beelzebub out of it!
we will see how it turns out, it tasted like autumn though. damn, i can't wait for those grey, cold days of october. if this doesnt turn out well, i may just be so crestfallen i may not recover. i will end up a shadow of my former self.
racked to the secondary last night. gravity is at 0.998, OG was 1.061. and boy, it does not taste very good. no sweetness whatsoever, no apple nose. no apple fun. packs a purty punch though, i do admit.
we'll see how this one matures, but i may not be using premiere cuvee again. may go for the cider yeast wyeast makes. we shall see how long it takes for this baby to walk.
krausenator- What yeast did you end up using? I used champagne yeast & got similar results. On the batch that turned out really well, it took almost 6 months before it really tasted good. Like a real dry champagne with a hint of apple. Not really what I was after, either, but good.
I want to do a blackberry apple cider this fall, but sweeter with a good apple/berry flavor.
The last 2 batches were terrible, dry, bitter, with some nasty white stuff. Poured them out. I get my cider from an orchard late in the season, real sweet, aprox a 1.040 O.G. It's unfiltered, unpastuerized, etc.
Do I need to heat it or boil?
i used two packets (10 g) of Premiere Cuvee yeast. it was pitched on june 10, and racked to the secondary on june 18th.
it is still there, the gravity was 0.998 on june 18th when i racked it. O.G. was1.061. i need to bottle it but i haven't had the time. and i am still unsure how to go about it. i think i may need to blend in some raw cider to sweeten it a bit and give it some apple flavor. but i am unsure if this will be enough sugars to carbonate the cider, as i would like to do. and i am still trying to find out if i can bottle it in champagne bottles without fear of explosions.
On priming sugar & more apple taste, how about taking the S.G. of the raw cider, figure out how much cider it would take to contain the amout of sugar you would use for priming when bottling.
How about that BKB Community Cider Brew?
Check my post on the Champagne Bottle thread. I tried corking with regular wine corks, didn't work.
Less expensive sparkling wines, & non-alcoholic sparkling ciders sometimes come in bottles with the same diameter top as a beer bottle.
i guess i need to get this bottle operation going, so i need some input.
first things first- i have had the cider sitting in the secondary for a full month now, so i should bottle it up. it has warmed up here recently and a few days my brew room got up to 77 F...need i be concerned for my cider? i have a mead in there too, but i am not sweating the mead any as they do well at higher temps, i am just not sure if in my laziness if i ruined my cider. have i?
b) the OG of the raw cider is 1.040. my gravity at racking to the secondary was at 0.998. i have not checked it since, and like i said it has been a month, but i suspect it is relatively close. how much of the cider need i add to prime it sufficiently? and how do i calculate how much i need for priming and how much i will have as a residual to help apple-up the flavor? i want to sweeten a tad and put some apple flavor in it, but i dont want to add too much raw cider and have the yeast get all over excited and ferment it all, giving me over carbonated bottle bombs and a huge frickin' mess.
III. i am going to use recycled champagne bottles. i gather the best way to cap them is to just use the crimp caps like on 12 ozers?
The other thing you can cap with is plastic Chanpagne stoppers. Kraus has them 50/$10.65, reusable. Probably need the wire hoods, too.
Does anyone have a chart that would calculate the amount of sugar by volume based on the S.G.?
Your cider is most likely ok, I've had it sit that long without ill effect. But if it smells bad, don't bother, it won't get better. I uncapped & poured out a batch about a month ago, thought age would improve it. Wrong.
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